Patrolling in the fifties: boots, guns, cannibalism & kuru

BILL BROWN MBE

THE INTRODUCTION TO THE DDS&NA [Department of District Services and Native Affairs] Circular Instruction No 147 of 3 April 1952 said it all: “The policy of the Government is that all Restricted Areas in the Territory are to be brought under complete control by 31st May, 1955.”

Within a month of returning from my first leave, I was heading south from Kainantu to the Lamari and Aziana river valleys.

I had never been in a Restricted Area, but I was lucky; that 14-page circular was in the large foolscap format, and it was full of sound advice.

Cadet Patrol Officer Frank Harris accompanied the patrol for 11 days and at Suwaira and Obura, the first of the Lamari villages, we went through the motions of a census and compiling Village Registers.

Harris returned to Kainantu when we moved into uncontrolled territory, as I reckoned that one inexperienced person on the patrol, myself, was enough of a worry.

Gordon Linsley’s patrol in December 1951 may have been the first to visit the Lamari and Aziana. If it was, mine was the second (and I was to make another four).

Linsley and I both visited Barua, the Kukukuku villages on the left bank of the Aziana headwaters, which Jim Sinclair had visited from Mumeng in September 1951. Ten years later, in June 1960, Gus Bottrill and Otto Alder would establish a patrol post at nearby Wonenara.

We had two incidents on that 1953 patrol.  

At about midnight on 12 April at Konkonbira, Constable Pida fired a warning shot into the air.

The night guards had not stopped an intruder from entering the camp, but the shot from Pida’s rifle, a Lee Enfield .303, fired next to my tent had me awake and quickly outside. I had slept fully dressed except for my boots.

We stayed awake for the rest of the night, and by dawn, Good Friday, “about 80 armed natives had surrounded the camp... Women carrying reserve supplies of arrows formed a circle about ten yards behind their men folk.”

Ten days later in the Aziana at Oribinati, “just after we made camp they surrounded us and fired several arrows.”

District Commissioner Ian Downs read my report, decided I would run into more trouble and I was appointed as a Coroner.

Meanwhile to the west, just over the Goroka Sub-district boundary, John McArthur, also in his second term, was also patrolling to the south from Kumiava Patrol Post.

At Kumiava, on the foothills of Mount Michael, McArthur shared a grass patch with the Lutheran mission. They thought it was an airstrip, were there first and called it Tarabo

District Commissioner Downs decided to close the post at Kumiava and relocate McArthur to a new post in the more densely populated Fore area of the Kainantu Sub-district.

I was sitting alongside Harry West in the radio room at Kainantu when Downs came on air to discuss the move.

He announced that the new post would be at a village called Okapa. He liked the name of that village - it sounded like Okapi, a small African mammal.

West did not agree; he wanted to locate the new post at Moke in the centre of the population, but one did not argue with Downs, especially over the airwaves. West seemingly capitulated and named the new post Okapa but located it at Moke.

CPO Paul Healy joined McArthur to assist with the construction of the new post and a new section of road. Things were about to move, but Downs decreed that the upcoming Lamari patrol, my second, was to be delayed until after he had made an aerial survey of the area and had driven to Okapa.

He arrived in a de Havilland DH84 Dragon flown by Ray Harris, the boss of Territory Airlines, late in the afternoon on News Years Day.

The two wives were the only other passengers; Judy Downs, a vivacious and attractive 35-year-old, and Joan Harris, about to turn 31, even more glamorous.

The next morning, a Saturday, we took off in the Dragon to reconnoitre the Lamari; Harris in the pilot’s seat in the nose of the aircraft and, further back Downs and West on the bench seats on the side of the aircraft.

From further back I could barely see what was ahead, and very little to either side but the further we flew down the valley, the more precipitous it appeared.

The next morning, Downs was at the wheel of the station’s short wheel-based Landrover with the two wives alongside him as we set out for Okapa. Ray Harris, Harry West and I bounced around in the back - the picnic luncheon at our feet.

Five kilometres from our destination, the road nose-dived into a gully. Or was it a gorge? Downs inched the Landrover forward, and it started to slide. It was out of control and so was Downs’s notorious temper.

McArthur and Healy had disappeared, perhaps to avoid the wrath. With lengths of kanda (lawyer cane) attached to the rear of the vehicle, the locals lowered it down the slope.

Up the other side of the gully was Okapa, not yet a patrol post, not even a base camp, but there was a brand new house.

It was built on the ground for warmth and spotless newly plaited bamboo matting covered the earth floor. Inside it was clean and airy, almost a picnic atmosphere.

After lunch, the ladies ventured outside, eventually reappearing, grinning to themselves. I soon discovered why.

The toilet behind the house, a pit latrine, was a squatter with only a long narrow slip opening in the flitch of timber set in the earth floor. It was an impossible target – more a splashboard.

Downs and his party returned to Goroka, McArthur and Healy returned to Kumiava, and 10 days later we set out for the lower Lamari: eight police, one medical orderly, 45 carriers and didiman Don Shepherd to keep me company.

Our task was to explore the right bank of the Lamari River below the Aziana junction, and to investigate the reported murders of two natives from Ilessa village by their Obutasa neighbours.

It took 10 days, to reach a group of previously unvisited Fore villages in the Kasane valley on the lower Lamari fall, and another four days, on compass, to reach Soi-inantu.

It was downhill – our thoughts were on fish and perhaps oysters and prawns as we trudged through the uninhabited luxuriant forest. The reality was hundreds of voracious leeches, stinging nettles, pigeons and vulturine parrots.

We had descended 1,350 metres but there were no fish, prawns, canoes or coconuts at Soi-inantu. The men spoke Police Motu, most of them had worked for the Australasian Petroleum Company and they had been visited by one patrol from the Gulf.

My Highlands team members were short of food, but they did not like sago.

Back to Ilessa and the inquiry into the two murders. The Ilessas had only recently accepted the Administration but were still wary, and wanted protection.

We arrived, they went to the gardens for food and the Obutasa struck again, killing a food gatherer.

We were delayed a day by the flooded Lamari River and then struggled up the 580 metre escarpment to Obutasa.

The description of the events that followed is drawn from two statements made by police:

Last December [1953] … I heard that two Ilessa natives had been killed by natives of Obutasa village.  I reported this … the ADO told me that a patrol would make an investigation as soon as possible. … I left Kainantu with Mr Brown on a patrol. …

The Luluai of Ilessa … told us that the Obutasa natives had that day killed another Ilessa man. … we went to Obutasa. About seventy people surrounded the patrol There were plenty of natives around the hills at distances of fifty yards and more armed with bows, arrows and shields decorated with cassowary feathers.

On Saturday the 13th February 1954 we descended to the Lamari River. ….and … slept on the bank. We went to Obutasa village on Sunday.  … On Wednesday some men from Obutasa village came to the camp. Natives armed with bows and arrows and carrying shields watched the camp from the nearby ridges. I think these were natives of the next two villages who had come to assist the Obutasa. We were instructed to arrest some men indicated to us …

As soon as we arrested the men spears began to fall around and in the camp. These spears (arrows) were for fired from a short distance about forty yards away and hit hard. Mr. Brown fired a warning shot but the arrows continued to fall in the camp. I saw Mr Brown and Constable …  move forward. If Mr. Brown had not move quickly he would have been hit by the arrows.

There were three men beneath the camp as well as a large group above the camp. They were coming around to attack us from the rear firing arrows as they went. They were just below the camp and the arrows they were firing were dangerous. They took no notice of the warning shots so I fired at one of tem. He fell down and the other two men ran away. … He was dead.

The investigation was completed and I explained to the men in custody what was going to happen to them. Six were to be released and could return to the village, and eight were going to Kainantu to face the court.

It took a full day to return to return to the empty house at Okapa. Then there was the longer walk, along the jeep track, to Kainantu: to the paper war, to a coronial, to court proceedings, and to reports.

A mild admonition emanating from Headquarters: “Only six native policeman were with the patrol leader, two others being sick and … left at Iakea”.

It was reinforced by the District Commissioner: “It had escaped my notice that, at the time of the attack on the patrol, Mr Brown had with him only six native policeman … future patrols to the South Lamari area will include a minimum of twelve native police.”

In the patrol report, I recorded a story about the Fore sorcery called Keru [sic], and described the victim’s symptoms:

“The first sign of impending death is a general debility which is followed by a general weakness and inability to stand.

"The victim retires to her house. She is able to take a little nourishment but suffers from violent shivering. The next stage is that the victim lies down  … cannot take nourishment and death eventually ensues.”

I also described the cannibalism practised by the Fore people:

“Enemies are never eaten, only friends and relatives … a body may be eaten soon after death or some months after.  If it is not eaten soon after it is buried and disinterred after approximately one month.

"Care is taken when the body is interred and when it is disinterred it is shovelled with great care onto pandanus mats. … The maggots … are regarded as an integral part of the body...

"All parts of the body are consumed, the flesh being mixed with green leaf vegetables and roasted in bamboos.”

I was not to know that brighter people than me would identify Keru, or Kuru as it was to later be known, as a medical problem and identify its cause as Fore cannibalism.

John McArthur, based at the new Okapa Patrol Post from early 1954, sent people suffering from Kuru to hospital at Kainantu. PO John Coleman became involved when he took over as OIC in July 1955.

Dr Vin Zigas became involved about August 1955, and by March 1957 had brought in Dr Daniel Carleton Gajdusek.

In 1976, Gajdusek along with Baruch S Blumberg was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for showing that Kuru was transmissible to chimpanzees. Okapa was on the international scene, probably forever.

And in 2009, a misguided academic wrote that “the term ‘kuru’ derives from the Fore word ‘kuria/guria’ (‘to shake’) a reference to the body tremors that are a classic symptom of the disease.”

He did not appear to have known of “keru”, nor that his “kuria/guria” is Pidgin, a language not spoken by the Fore in 1954.

He might well have said, with equal inaccuracy, that the term comes from Motu word “keru” meaning “cold; fever and ague”.

Comments

[Don Tapio]

It may be of passing interest to those interested in the Okapa and Kukukuku regions' history to note that today these areas are stronghold, traditionalist Christian regions.

The work of Pastor Campbell has seen Okapa become a strong Seventh Day Adventist region in the Australasian-Pacific Division.

Descendants of the Fore people today are at the forefront of science, business and government around the world.

The ancestors of the Kukukuku were fierce warriors too and hunted heads as trophies but have embraced Christianity and are amongst the most hard working blue collar ethnic groups in PNG.

Mathias, not all the tribes in a province or district from the coast to the highlands practiced cannibalism.

My ancestors were head hunters but not cannibals and they regularly raided the valleys for their trophies, women and children.

That is why most original peoples settled the mountains because just around the 1950s the 'New Law and Gavman' claimed the valleys.

[Mathias Kin]

Thank you Bill. That was something. Excellent stuff. I am from Simbu and from all the accounts by Schaefer, Leahy, Nilles, Taylor and Bergmann; from Chuave up (border of Simbu and EHP)as far as Western Highlands province, they did not see any signs of cannibalism. This is confirmed by our fathers, many alive today. There were some cannibalism in Karimui. This is a very interesting piece history. Others, kiaps, church workers, policeman and others out there, please write!

[Anne Griffin]

I dug this up (oops) from a 1953 Seventh Day Adventist mission magazine.

The article ‘Cannibal Outpost Falls in New Guinea’ by Pastor AJ Campbell, commences:
___________

‘Cannibals? Yes, plenty of them, and in this year 1952! Where? Central New Guinea!’

Pastor Campbell describes his visit to the Moke area where:

The Fore area natives have informed our teachers that it has been their habit to sell their aged parents to the highest bidder to be killed and eaten, and as there has been no influence likely to change this habit until the arrival of the mission teacher with the gospel story, it can be assumed that the custom is still practised, though it is difficult to get the natives to admit it.

"Tired and weary, we eventually made camp at a spot where we have since established a mission outpost in this locality.
The people surrounding this post are avowed cannibals. They not only consume any stray enemy unfortunate enough to fall into their hands, but they eat their own dead.

"Normally these people have no shame at all in consuming human flesh. Recently in this place, when a Government party asked to see the grave of a murdered man, the village representative replied: “There is no grave, we have eaten the man according to our custom. Our mouths are our graves.”

and:

"A native teacher by the name of Aranke has established his mission station at Miarasa, and while we were there he took some of our party to see the proof of his first victory over cannibalism. This was represented by a double grave to which have since been added three more."

Pastor Campbell includes a photograph of the fenced double grave. The caption reads:

"A double grave at Miarasa, Central New Guinea, containing the bodies of a man and a woman, the first ever to be buried in that area. The natives objected to the burial as they wanted the bodies to eat. During the night, flesh had been cut from the thighs of the dead woman. After an exciting struggle the burial was carried out, and others have followed."

He relates the circumstances of the burial and continues:

‘We learned it was their revolting practice to first wash the corpse in the blood of a pig, and then it would be cut up by the people in the village square. Later it was steam-cooked in bamboo pipes along with the flesh of the same pig.’

[David Wall]

Bill, your firsthand accounts are remarkable, to say the least. I would like to see them published in hardcopy. I was particularly interested in your remarks about Kuru....

"John McArthur, based at the new Okapa Patrol Post from early 1954, sent people suffering from Kuru to hospital at Kainantu. PO John Coleman became involved when he took over as OIC in July 1955.

"Dr Vin Zigas became involved about August 1955, and by March 1957 had brought in Dr Daniel Carleton. In 1976, Gajdusek along with Baruch S Blumberg was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for showing that Kuru was transmissible to chimpanzees. Okapa was on the international scene, probably forever."

In the past I had heard that Kiaps were the first expats to recognise and report the disease. You mention, John McArthur and John Coleman.

Vin Zigas, was the first medical graduate involved with Kuru, and Dr Jan Saave always said that he should have shared the Nobel Prize!

Bill, thanks for your historial recollections.

[Jeff Febi]

It should be noted also that if a really beautiful person (perceived by the enemy tribe) is captured and killed, there's a chance the corpse could be caniballised.

Of course the thought of the beauty and grandeur of the corpse going to waste or being fed on by those nasty maggots isn't appealing.

Also, it is believed such beauty may bring some kind of good luck!

[Don Tapio]

Hi Bill, yes, I agree with you. I am not disputing your accounts.

The practice of cannibalism was a widely practiced 'custom' among the tribes varying in only what and who was eaten.

I come from a different district so am not familiar with the customs from Okapa and Kukukuku - modern Marawaka and Simbari.

[Bill Brown]

Jeff Febi, thank you for your comments.

Apologies, but Lufa was a bit outside my area, so I do not know about the early patrols.

Patrol Officer John Thyer was based at Lufa in March 1955, and he was probably the first incumbent of the Patrol Post. Thyer is no longer with us.

Jack Mater was the next incumbent, and he had a long stay – from November or December 1955 to January 1957, when he was relieved by Ian Burnett (son of Sir McFarlane Burnett). Ian Burnett has also left us.

Hi Don Tapio, my narrative about cannibalism was not drawn from memory. It is a precise transcript from the report that I wrote at the time, in 1954.

I wrote down what the people told me, and put it in my report.

I think that what the people told me in 1954, is likely to be a fair account of what was custom at the time.

That custom did not imply any disrespect – but quite the reverse.

[Jeff Febi]

Bill, who would have patrolled the Lufa area...would you know?

I am interested as I come from Lufa. A story on Lufa would be great too. Cheers!

[Don Tapio]

Bill, your observation that the 'enemies are never eaten, only friends and relatives' is very true in this part of the country (Eastern Highlands).

Compared to the head hunters of the Binandere in Popondetta and the 'hunter-raiders' of the Mianmin in Telefomin.

However this is the first time I have heard of people eating rotten flesh.

Elders would tell of stories about how great warriors and chiefs were accorded the 'honour' of their bodies being eaten after they have died.

This is more a 'burial rite' accorded to important persons or loved ones in the community.

Important persons who had died were not allowed to 'rot and go to waste', as that was seen as 'disrespectful'.

The tokpisin slang which may have it's root in this observation is 'kilim yu na kaikai' - 'kill you and eat you'... and is meant as a compliment in a good way that 'you are too good' or maybe edible.

[Jeff Febi]

Thanks Bill Brown MBE. This will make my collection.

History from the pen of the one who made it. It can't get any better than this.